How to Create Whitepapers People Will Actually Download

Tim Brown is the owner of Hook Agency, and strategic marketer focused primarily on driving traffic and leads for small businesses and construction companies.

Ask prospects many questions to identify common needs

Big Call to Actions

Attractive Photos

Give them a taste

Strong Outline and Bullet Points

Easy to understand language

Big Call to Actions

You need clear call to actions – the copy on the button itself should be able to finish this sentence for the prospect – “I want to – —-“, so if you’re a financial advisor the sentence might be ‘I want to “Have a Confident Plan for Retirement”‘ so then make your button say “Have a Confident Plan for Retirement.”

Another example might be “Create Wealth on Auto-Pilot” – but your call-to-actions should never be generic or just say ‘Download the Resource’ if you can help it.

Creating big call to actions also means placing the call to actions around the site – within content, at the end of blog posts and interior website pages, and on the most trafficed areas of your website as well.

Attractive Photos

This means first of all that you use photos of real people, ideally – smiling or what they would look like receiving the benefit of the value proposition your guide or resource is intending to help with. This means on the front of the resource, as part of the landing page – and also, it means having a mocked up version of the white paper (and making it feel physical with the way it’s preseneted) so that people ‘covet’ it a little bit.

Give them a taste

You should try to give as much value in bullet points and in an outline of the content as you possibly can. Don’t worry about giving too much – just focus on making the information clear, and visually laid out so they can get the main points without digging.

Use Easy-to-understand Language

No-one needs you to exercise your entire vocabulary to trust you. It’s more important that they actually understand the key ideas you’re trying to express. Make sure you avoid industry jargon – and get to the point, rather than waxing poetic with unnecessary detail. YOU are the professional, focus on stuff non-professionals need first and foremost, and then ask for the business after you’ve been as useful as you possibly can be.